Mostly about Taiwan…

Ma Ying-jeou wants a peace agreement with China

Ma Ying-jeou said that he would like to sign a peace agreement with China probably during his term in an interview with Indian quarterly India and Global Affairs.[1]

Well, Ma promised that he wouldn’t even consider it if China doesn’t destroy all the missiles aiming at Taiwan[2]. But China has actually increased the number of missiles aiming at Taiwan after Ma took office[3] and carried on eliminating Taiwan’s international space by any means. Ma seems to be ignoring these, which implies that he doesn’t mind China suppressing Taiwan and surrendering.

It almost always winds me up when major international media say that Ma is ‘improving relations’ with China. What relations? China’s behaviour has always been the same: when they are the stronger one, they make sure that everything goes their way. They would only compromise when they don’t have an absolute advantage. The weaker one can only get China to soften unless they surrender and even after the surrender, China will not leave any room for possible challenges. The DPP has expressed their wish to communicate with China and improve relations as two sovereign states but China has never agreed and blamed everything on the DPP.

Look at Tibet and Hong Kong. Tibet had a peace agreement with China. China promised Tibet peace, autonomy and religious freedom as long as Tibet accepted that they were part of China. However, China has not kept any of their promises but killed and terrorised Tibetans after signing that agreement[4]. China promised Hong Kong that they could keep their own system for 50 years and general elections for their own governor before but Hong Kong has learned the hard way that Beijing cannot be trusted.[5] Even the US former president, Bill Clinton, thought this would be a bad idea for Taiwan.[6][7]

So why does Ma not mention these and insist on moves that will seriously affect his chance of getting re-elected in 2012?I agree with Richard here that Ma’s intention is probably to put Taiwan in China’s pocket by 2012, so there will be no more presidential elections. Therefore, Taiwanese really have to stand up to Ma and show their opposition to Ma selling out Taiwan now. It may be too late if it’s left any longer.

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“It almost always winds me up when major international media say that Ma is ‘improving relations’ with China.”

I am wondering about that, too. Many writers/media outlets seem to have gotten stuck with the old cold war situation and still think that it’s all about two governments competing for which one of them is the sole legal representative of “China”. Nevermind Lee Teng-hui’s Taiwanization policies or eight years of DPP government.

In their eyes “improving relations” means that finally one side is suboridnating itself. It’s a rather depressing perception of reality. But with someone like Ma in the presidential office, it’s hard to see how to change this.

To be honest, I can’t work out whether those journalists genuinely believe that China would actually compromise and show Taiwan respect and recognition through Ma’s effort or they simply want Taiwan to surrender to China? Ma is certainly making matters worse.

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Taiwan, also known as Formosa, is NOT part of China. The majority of the population see themselves as Taiwanese, NOT Chinese. Taiwan is a democracy and therefore people there do not wish to be ruled by China, a dictatorship with poor human rights record and about 2,000 missiles aiming at Taiwan.